Speed skating at the 1992 Winter Olympics

Speed skating at the 1992 Winter Olympics, was held from 9 to 20 February. Ten events were contested at L'anneau de vitesse. It was the last time in Winter Olympics in which speed skating events were contested in an outdoor ice rink.^[1][2]

Speed skating at the XVI Olympic Winter Games
Pictogram for speed skating
Venue	L'anneau de vitesse
Dates	9–20 February 1992
No. of events	10
Competitors	154 from 23 nations
← 1988 1994 →

Medal summary

Medal table

Rank	Nation	Gold	Silver	Bronze	Total
1	Germany (GER)	5	3	3	11
2	Norway (NOR)	2	2	1	5
3	United States (USA)	2	0	0	2
4	Netherlands (NED)	1	1	2	4
5	China (CHN)	0	2	0	2
6	Japan (JPN)	0	1	3	4
7	South Korea (KOR)	0	1	0	1
8	Austria (AUT)	0	0	1	1
Totals (8 entries)		10	10	10	30

Germany, in its first Olympics since reunification, topped the medal table with five gold medals, and eleven total medals. All the medals were won by athletes from the former East Germany. Germany's Gunda Niemann led the individual medal table with two golds and a silver, and Norway's Johan Olav Koss was the most successful male skater, with one gold and one silver.

South Korea's Kim Yoon-Man and China's Ye Qiaobo became the first ever medalists for their countries at the Winter Olympics. Bonnie Blair collected two gold medals to become the second most successful female speed skater of the games.

Men's events

Event	Gold		Silver		Bronze
500 metres details	Uwe-Jens Mey  Germany	37.14	Toshiyuki Kuroiwa  Japan	37.18	Junichi Inoue  Japan	37.26
1000 metres details	Olaf Zinke  Germany	1:14.85	Kim Yoon-man  South Korea	1:14.86	Yukinori Miyabe  Japan	1:14.92
1500 metres details	Johann Olav Koss  Norway	1:54.81	Ådne Søndrål  Norway	1:54.85	Leo Visser  Netherlands	1:54.90
5000 metres details	Geir Karlstad  Norway	6:59.97	Falko Zandstra  Netherlands	7:02.28	Leo Visser  Netherlands	7:04.96
10,000 metres details	Bart Veldkamp  Netherlands	14:12.12	Johann Olav Koss  Norway	14:14.58	Geir Karlstad  Norway	14:18.13

Women's events

Event	Gold		Silver		Bronze
500 metres details	Bonnie Blair  United States	40.33	Ye Qiaobo  China	40.51	Christa Luding  Germany	40.57
1000 metres details	Bonnie Blair  United States	1:21.90	Ye Qiaobo  China	1:21.92	Monique Garbrecht  Germany	1:22.10
1500 metres details	Jacqueline Börner  Germany	2:05.87	Gunda Niemann  Germany	2:05.92	Seiko Hashimoto  Japan	2:06.88
3000 metres details	Gunda Niemann  Germany	4:19.90	Heike Warnicke  Germany	4:22.88	Emese Hunyady  Austria	4:24.64
5000 metres details	Gunda Niemann  Germany	7:31.57	Heike Warnicke  Germany	7:37.59	Claudia Pechstein  Germany	7:39.80

Records

There were no Olympic or World records set at the 1992 Games, as the outdoor rink in Albertville (as of today the last speed skating outdoor rink in Winter Games history) was not conducive to fast times.^[3][4]

Participating NOCs

Twenty-three nations competed in the speed skating events at Albertville. The Unified Team was in essence a Soviet team under a different name as the USSR collapsed several months prior to the Games' start.

•  Australia (2)
•  Austria (3)
•  Canada (9)
•  China (10)
•  Unified Team (19)
•  Finland (2)
•  France (1)
•  Great Britain (1)
•  Germany (14)
•  Hungary (2)
•  Italy (4)
•  Japan (15)
•  South Korea (5)
•  Mongolia (2)
•  Netherlands (14)
•  Norway (8)
•  Poland (4)
•  North Korea (5)
•  Romania (3)
•  Sweden (8)
•  Czechoslovakia (2)
•  United States (19)
•  Yugoslavia (2)